


Clockwork

by Ramasi



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-11
Updated: 2012-02-11
Packaged: 2017-10-30 23:21:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/337290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ramasi/pseuds/Ramasi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dialogue, incidental nakedness, beer, and an off-screen sword-fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clockwork

Immortal presence awoke him. By the time the door to the barge flew open, he was standing by the bed, sword ready.

It revealed Methos, standing very still in the half-shadows of the night, index finger pressed to his lips, glaring at him insistently.

_Be quiet_ , Duncan understood. Though he could not sense another immortal presence, he kept his sword ready, looking at Methos in askance. Methos didn't bulge, so MacLeod gave him a quick nod, and briefly raised his own finger to his lips to indicate he understood.

Methos took a deep breath. Then he closed the door behind him, walked to the middle of the room, and started to undress.

Duncan stared at him. Shirt, shoes, trousers, socks. _What are you doing?_ Duncan mouthed at him tonelessly, when he finally managed to catch Methos' eyes at that stage. The older immortal threw him a resentful look and signed silence at him again, before proceeding to remove his underwear.

Duncan followed his movements with his eyes as he collected his clothes up into his arms, went to one of his windows, opened it, and unceremoniously dropped everything into the water bellow.

Then Methos closed the window, turned back round, and gave him a brilliant smile.

"You got any clothes for me?" he asked, even as he moved towards one of his cupboards.

"W –" Duncan hesitated, but he figured it must be safe to talk now. "What the hell are you doing? No, wait –"

Too late: Methos moved out of the way just in time to avoid the avalanche of old coats, shoes, and hats that tumbled down over him.

"You probably should clean up here sometime," he remarked, then glanced back over at Duncan. "Could you put that down just for a moment, please?" he asked, motioning the sword Duncan was still holding with his chin. "No offence, it just makes me sort off... nervous."

"What is – No." Duncan put aside the weapon and went to interfere before Methos opened another cupboard. "I'll _find_ you clothes, okay?"

"Great!" Methos grinned and went to sit down on the couch, still stark naked, then glared at his sword, by the bed. "I meant stop waving it around, not lay it down completely," he snapped, impatient. "You got a spare sword, I hope, they took mine."

Duncan took a deep breath.

"What are you doing here?"

"Clothes, sword, hurry," Methos said. "Not in that order."

Duncan kept staring at him for a moment, but the impromptu nakedness was weird enough that he obeyed. He tossed Methos a sword that hung on the wall – more decoration than anything else, he hadn't used it in ages – then went to find him clothes.

"Are you going to tell me what this is about?"

"Someone's trying to kill you," Methos explained, getting back up.

"Oh," said Duncan, unsurprised. "Is that why you're naked?"

"I couldn't _find_ a tracking device or a receiver anywhere, so I figured I wouldn't take any chances," Methos explained. "Well, get ready," he added, putting on some trousers. Duncan followed the movement with some regrets: he had a feeling he was never going to get these clothes back. "We've got to get going."

"Tracking device," Duncan repeated; he still had no idea what was going on, but he understood this part.

"There might have been," Methos said, and weighed the sword in his hand, trying to get a feel for it. "Come on."

Duncan went to get dressed himself.

"Are you going to tell me what this is about?" he snapped, his voice muffled from under his shirt.

"There's this immortal, she wants you dead you for some reason. You ready?"

"Yes."

"Hurry, then." Methos walked over and grabbed his arm, dragged him towards the exit. "Gimme a coat," he added, impatient.

Duncan obliged.

"I'll want this back," he said, even as Methos finished dressing; the speed at which he sometimes went through them, what with the rips and the blood, could get suspicious as it was.

"Course," Methos said innocently. "Anyway," he went on, as they got outside, and both of them looked up and down the street; empty. "She shot me, I woke with a blade at my throat, and she told me to kill you, because she seems to know we're friends, so she figured you'd be naive enough to give me the chance. Which is true."

"I don't know anyone by that name," Duncan said, even as he let Methos lead the way.

Methos shrugged.

"She probably had a different one when you knew her. Or maybe you killed a friend of a friend, or you're just in the way." He gestured, irritated. " _I_ don't know how you managed to make so many enemies in such a short life, I'm just trying to keep them from killing you. Could you walk faster?"

"Depends. Where are we going?" Duncan asked.

"Holy ground."

"What?" Duncan stopped. "You want us to hide on holy ground?"

"No, I want _me_ to hide on holy ground, because she said she was going to kill me if I didn't kill you. So I'll just give you a description, and you..." Methos shrugged. "You got a better idea?"

"Fine," Duncan snapped.

"I don't think I know her," he added, a little while later, quietly, his voice ringing through the large building nonetheless.

Methos was sitting two rows farther, managing to make sitting on the wooden bench seem comfortable, which Duncan knew was impossible. He was drinking a beer, apparently from Duncan's own fridge. He hadn't even noticed him getting it.

"She probably changed."

Duncan looked down at his hands. He was used to other immortals trying to kill him; but usually they tried to do so themselves. Anyway, it was always worse when it was a woman.

"There must be _some_ reason," he said unhappily.

Methos lowered his beer and gave him a long look from the corner of his eyes.

"Oh no, you don't." He muttered something in a language Duncan didn't know. "Do _I_ need to do it?"

"Do w – No!" He glared at Methos. "I'm just wondering."

"Who cares?" Methos said, taking another sip.

"I do." He paused, only now fully realising something: there'd been two descriptions. "You knew her."

"In passing. About three hundred years ago."

"Well?"

"What?" Methos shrugged. "She was married, there were even foster children, didn't live very large, never threatened to kill me." He thought for a moment. "I didn't actually murder a good friend, but I guess from what she knew of me it seemed plausible."

"M-hm," Duncan made. "I'm not naive for trusting you."

Methos looked at him at the non-sequitur, eyes narrowed.

"You handed over your _sword_ just because I asked. No-one does that."

"I wasn't wrong."

"Would you have done it if you'd known me better at the time?" Methos said, giving him a significant look.

Duncan paused.

"Yes."

Methos turned his head away in a slight head-shake.

 

"I didn't think you had it in you," Methos said, fingers travelling up and down his beer glass, so that Duncan braced himself for a painful screeching noise any moment.

Joe was still standing behind the bar, finishing with cleaning up, and Duncan had remained standing by him. The Watcher didn't say anything, and probably wouldn't unless directly appealed to.

"I'm not an idiot," Duncan snapped.

Maybe coming here hadn't been a good idea; Methos could be annoying enough to be around even without a fight he hadn't wanted and a quickening behind him. But he could hardly have left his friend waiting in the church forever, and visiting Joe's had seemed like a good idea at the time.

"Hm," Methos said, non-committal, leaning back on his chair. Seeing him from profile, Duncan could only barely make out the amused smile.

"I waited for her to heal, I gave her back her sword; I just checked for the gun first," Duncan said, defensive.

"Of course you did," Methos agreed, sounding affectionate.

"What is your problem?" Duncan snapped.

Methos briefly turned to grin at him.

"I just find it funny that you're at the point where, when someone wants to build up a criminal organisation, they start off with trying to have you killed."

"It wasn't just that," said Duncan, turning away irritably. "There was history."

"The history was that you should have taken her head a hundred years ago."

"You're one to talk," Duncan muttered.

"No," said Methos, categorical. " _I_ run away, but I'm actually good at it."

"I didn't run away, I just – she hadn't done anything to me."

" _She_ hadn't."

Duncan glared at him.

"I don't know what they did in _your_ time, but we didn't hold the whole family responsible for someone's crime."

"You know," said Methos conversationally, "that practice often wasn't as much about shared guilt or prevention as about forestalling revenge."

"So _you_ would have done it."

Methos turned round with a disbelieving frown.

" _I_ wouldn't have been with the Texas Rangers chasing outlaws in the first place. And, actually," he added, like this settled things, "I wasn't."

Duncan paused, trying to imagine Methos in the Wild West. It was difficult; but then, sometimes it was difficult imagining Methos anywhere but in the twentieth century, which was a ridiculous thought.

"Right, over a hundred years since your last fight at the time."

"Give or take."

"I don't know what you want," Duncan said, fight briskly leaving him. "She's dead now."

Methos shrugged without looking at him.

"You asked."

Duncan narrowed his eyes at him, then turned back towards the bar.

"It was good seeing you, Joe."

The Watcher smiled at him.

"Take care," he said.

Duncan nodded, and Joe looked after him as he left, door falling shut softly behind him. There was a silence, stretching out. Methos ran two fingers up and down his glass.

"What?" the immortal eventually said, without turning round.

Joe smiled to himself.

"Nothing."


End file.
